Matt Nieto didn’t practice Wednesday and Sharks coach Pete DeBoer doesn’t know if the forward will be able to play in their do-or-die Game 7 against the Nashville Predators at SAP Center on Thursday night.

Melker Karlsson moved up from the fourth line and took Nieto’s place on the third line with Chris Tierney and Joel Ward for Wednesday’s practice.

In Monday’s Game 6, Nieto suffered a lower-body injury when he crashed into the Predators’ net with 3:31 to go in the first period. He was carrying the puck from his own zone, zipped through the neutral zone and was checked by Mattias Ekholm before he crashed. Nieto remained on the ice for several moments before he was able to make it to the Sharks’ bench.

Nieto came out for one more shift with under a minute left in the first period but didn’t return after that in the Predators’ 4-3 overtime win that evened the best-of-seven series at three games apiece.

Nieto, probably the Sharks’ fastest skater, had three points in 11 playoff games before his injury.

“Next man up,” DeBoer said when asked if Nieto’s absence would be tough to absorb. “We’ve been like that all year.”

Karlsson finished with 8:39 of ice time on Monday and was in the game when Nashville’s Viktor Arvidsson scored the winning goal 2:03 into the first overtime.

Miikka Salomaki flipped the puck from near his own blue line to near the Sharks’ blue line, and it bounced over Karlsson’s skate to Arvidsson, who skated into the Sharks’ zone and lifted a backhand shot past Martin Jones’ left shoulder and into the net for the win.

“I haven’t seen it, I don’t want to see it,” Karlsson said Wednesday. “It was a good play by (Arvidsson). It’s a great shot from there, so it could have gone either way. We had a chance to win there, we didn’t play our best game, but we had a real good chance to win it.”

The fourth-line skaters on Wednesday were Tommy Wingels, Dainius Zubrus, Nick Spaling and Micheal Haley. Wingels was off the ice early Wednesday, an indication that he would be the player the Sharks would dress if Nieto is unable to go.

Wingels played all five games in the Sharks’ first-round series against Los Angeles Kings and the first four games of the series against the Predators.

“Get pucks to the net, be physical. Play the kind of game that I can bring,” Wingels said when asked if there were certain areas he’d like to improve.

Curtis Pashelka is the San Jose Sharks reporter for the Bay Area News Group. Prior to covering the Sharks, Curtis served as the high school sports editor for the East Bay. He also worked as a general assignment reporter covering motorsports, golf and college basketball, and as a backup writer on the A's, Giants and Warriors. He started at the organization in 2000 and spent close to eight years covering high school sports.